On the relation between Zenkevich and Wiener indices of alkanes

Abstract

A relatively complicated relation was found to exist between the quantity U, recently introduced by Zenkevich (providing a measure of internal molecular energy), and the Wiener index W (measuring molecular surface area and intermolecular forces). We now report a detailed analysis of this relation and show that, in the case of alkanes, its main features are reproduced by the formula U = –aW + b + gn1; where n1 is the number of methyl groups, and a, b and g are constants, depending only on the number of carbon atoms. Thus, for isomeric alkanes with the same number of methyl groups, U and W are linearly correlated.

Keywords

• Zenkevich index
• Wiener index
• alkanes